Fire destroyed Domtar's planing mill in Elk
Lake, CBC Radio reports. The main sawmill and kiln were not affected in the
Wednesday evening fire.

Operations will continue in the sawmill and the
company will rebuild. No one was injured and about 30 jobs were involved in
the planing operation, which dresses rough-cut lumber from the sawmill.
Domtar says it will try to find other work for the affected employees.

No arson is suspected.

The Domtar mill is the major employer in the
town, located north of Lady Evelyn-Smoothwater Wilderness Park. It is the
primary sawmill for spruce and jack pine cut in the Temagami region,
including controversial cutting in the Muskego Wildlands and north of Lady
Evelyn Lake and Maple Mountain. It will also be milling timber off the
soon-to-be-reopened Red Squirrel Road extension.

Domtar is one of Canada's largest forest
products companies. Its 2003 revenue topped $3.5 billion.

MARCH 17, 2005

Fishing hut removal a sign of approaching spring

You know spring is not far away when the fishing
huts start coming off the ice. Anglers have started preparing for the March
31 deadline when huts (and garbage) must be off Lake Temagami. Either that
or a fine.

MARCH 8, 2005

A new dam for Fourbass Lake?

In the news yesterday were reports of a new
hydroelectric dam on the horizon for Fourbass Lake. When is news not news?

Minister of Natural Resources David Ramsay
issued a press release announcing that Ontario is "making 18 sites available
for waterpower development" across Ontario on Crown land. (The political spin
calls it an expansion of "clean energy potential.")

In November, the ministry had called for
"Expressions of Interest to identify potential waterpower sites" and from
those private proposals the 18 sites were "approved as appropriate for
development." Sound vague? It should.

Fourbass Lake on the Matabitchuan River, three
kilometres (1.9 miles) west of Lake Timiskaming, was on the list. Unlike all
the other sites, it had no assigned site number. Spokesperson Ian Crawford
admitted that all the ministry had was a undefined proposal from a private
group for development on Fourbass Lake, somewhere on Fourbass. You can't
give it a site location if there isn't one.

Crawford did not know if the proposal would be
at the outlet, where there has been a hydroelectric dam since 1910, or on
one of the small rivers flowing into the lake.

The nearly century-old generating station captured the flow of the Matabitchuan River and flooded four lakes — First Bass, Second Bass, Third
Bass and Fourth Bass — creating a new water body named Fourbass.

Then what's the proposal? Another dam site, or
something piggybacked on the existing dam? Without a written proposal it is not even certain that it's
viable.